The Hot Springs star. (Hot Spings [Hot Springs], Dakota [Dakota Territory, i.e. S.D.]) 1886-189?, 1887-10-07

ON ml1eS OF IL without o break, unless the
fever fog q be called a break. The only
life in this great morass was that Of the
aquatic birds, and the animals that fed ON
them, Of both Of which there werc vast
numbers. Geese, cranes, ducks, teal, coot,
snipe, and plover swarmed all around US,
many being Of varieties that werc quite
new to me, and all 81 tamo that one could
almost have knocked them over with a
stick. Among these birds I especially
noticed q very beautiful variety of painted
snipe, almost the size Of woodcock, and
with q flight more resembling that birds
than an English snipe's. In the pools, too,
was q species Of small alligator or enorm-
Gus iguana, I do not know which, that fed,
Bilali told me, upon tho Waterfowl, also
large quantities Of a hideous black water
snake, Of which the bite is very danger
GUS, though not, I gathered, 81 deadly as Q
cobra's o. q puff-adder's. The bull-frogs
were also very large, and with voices pro-
p0rtionate to their size; and as for the
mosquitoes, they were, II possible, even
worse than they had been on the river, and
tornsented us greatly. Undoubtedly, how
ever, the worst feature of the swamp was
the awful smell OF rotten vegetation that
hung about 1t, TINT was at times positively
o-verpowering, and the malarious exhala-
tions that accompanied it, which we were,
Of course. obliged to breathe.
On we went through it NIL, till at Inst the
gun sunk in sullen splendor just as we
reached o spot of rising ground about two
acres in cxtent-a little oasis of dry land
in the midst of the n,iry wilderness-where
Billali announced that we were to camp.
The camping, however, turned out to be
o very simple process, and consisted, in
fact, in sitting down on the ground round
a scanty fire made of dry reeds and some
wood that had been brougltw with us. How
ever, we made the best we could of it, and
smoked and eat with such appetite as the
smell of damp, sitting heat would allow,
for 1t was very hot in this low land, and
yet, oddly enough, chilly ut times. But
however hot it was, we were glad enough
to keep near the fire, because we found
that the mosquitoes did not like the smoke.
Presently we rolled ourselves up in our
blankets and tried to go to sleep, but SO
far us ! was concerned the bull-frugs, and
the extraordinary roaring and alarming
sound produced by hundreds of snipc how.
ering high in the air, made sleep IN inn
possibility, to say nothing of our other dis.
comforts. I turned and looked at Leo, who
was next me; he vas doing, but his face
had u flushed appearance that I did not
like. and Inv the tlickering fire-light I snw
Ustanc. who was lying on the other side
of him, raise herself from time to time
upon her elbow ind look at him a%nxiously
enough.
However, I could do nothing for him, for
we had all already taken a good dose of
quinine, which was the only preventive we
had; SO I lay and watched the stars come
out by thousands, till all the immense arch
of heaven was sown with glittering points,
and every point a world. Here was aglor-
ious sight, by which man might well meas
ure his own insigniticance!
Soon gave up thinking aNc-." for
mind wearies easily whenit strives to crap
pie with the Infinite, or to trace the foot
steps of the Almighty as He strides from
sphere to sphere, or deduce His purpose
from His works.
Above me, as I lay, shone the eternal
stars, and there at my feet the ilnpish
marsh-born balls Of fire rolled this way
and that, vapor-tossed and earth desiring,
and mcthought that in the two I saw u
type and image of what man is, and what
p%erchance man may II day be, If the liv-
ing Force that ordained him and them
should SO ordain this also. Oh, that it
might be ours to rest year by year upon
that high level of the heart to which Mt
times we momentarily autainl Oh, that
we could shake loose the prisoned pinions
Of the soul and soar to that superior point
whence, like to some traveller looking out
through space from Darien's giddicst peak,
we might gaze with tho spirit eyes Of no
BILE thoughts deep into Infinityl
What would it be to cast off this earthly
robe, to have done forever with these earth.
ly thoughts and miserable desires; no
longer, like those corpse-candles, to be
tossed this way and that by forces beyond
our control, or, II we can theoretically con-
troll them, and yet driven by the cxigencics
Of u nature to obey! Yes, t o cast them
off, to have done with the foul and thorny
places of the world, and, like to those gilt
tering points above me, to sit ON high
wrapped forever in the brightness of our
better selves, that even now shines in lis
as fire family shines within those lurid
bnlls, and lay down our littlcness in that
wide glory Of u dreams, that invisible
but surrounding good, from which all truth
and beauty comes!
These and many such thoughts passed
through my mind that night. They come
to torment us all at times. I say to tor
ment, for, alas, thinking can only serve
measure out the helplessncss of thou
What is the use of our feeble crying in
M T., r,.,S,l